Managing Sino-Western Joint Ventures: Product Selection Strategy

■ In many Chinese-foreign equity joint ventures the transfer of technology is an important issue. One of the crucial steps in the technology transfer process is the product selection. This process is determined by a number of factors which are specific to the Chinese business environment. ■ This paper analyses some specific factors impacting on product selection based on information derived from questionnaires, interviews with managers and case studies. The key factors of the process of product selection are identified. Key words ■ Selecting suitable product(s) is an essential step for foreign investors in setting up equity joint ventures in P.R. China. As the situation in China concerned, a suitable product selection strategy has to take into account not only normal market factors but also those factors specific to the Chinese market.